Another week, another survey. This one, commissioned by Depression Alliance and published as part of Depression Awareness Week, finds that one-third of adults struggle to cope at work because of depression, stress, or burnout and that 80% feel isolated or lonely as a result. And there's more. Only half of those feeling isolated (ie 50% of the 80% of the 33.3%; you following?) had confided in a colleague, yet 73% of those who had, said that it made them feel better.

I don't mean to sound blase. I am anything but blase about mental wellbeing in the workplace or anywhere else. It's just that I'm not sure how genuinely helpful this constant barrage of statistics is in addressing the issues concerned. Of course, I'm being a touch hypocritical; I've quoted statistics often enough in my columns, when I need them to back up an argument. There's something reassuringly definite about a number, something so solid and real (65% of people! You can't argue with that!), especially in an area such as mental health, which is so very difficult to measure, so intangible in its very nature. But that is precisely why we need to be careful, why we need to keep asking: "But what does this mean? What are we actually talking about?" and, most importantly, "What can we do about it?"

Mental health charities face an unenviable task in trying to raise awareness of mental health issues in a culture that by and large would very much rather look the other way. Awareness weeks and surveys such as this one are an attempt to draw attention to mental health issues and to get people talking about them. And there's nothing wrong with this, of course, but there is perhaps a danger that with so many surveys, and so many "weeks", the impact becomes diluted and the focus blurred.

And that would be a pity because the issues at stake could hardly be more crucial. Not only for the individuals concerned and for the organisations that employ them, but for all of us, for society as a whole. Of course it's important that support should be available to anyone who is struggling to cope, and initiatives such as Friends in Need, launched by Depression Alliance to offer people with depression a way of connecting with each other, are greatly to be welcomed. But it is vital that we also ask what it is in our working environment and in the wider culture beyond it that is fostering such levels of mental ill-health.

Take inequality, for example; one thing of which we can be pretty certain is that inequality is bad for mental health. There are mountains of evidence to suggest that mental health problems are most pronounced in countries, such as Britain, with high levels of social and economic inequality. So if we really want to get to the root of the issue, perhaps we should be asking for more than policies on workplace depression. Perhaps we should be asking about pay differentials. How does the colour/gender makeup of the board compare with that of the cleaning staff? Perhaps we need to start being awkward.

Mental health problems do not exist in isolation. Often, if we are only prepared to listen, they can serve as the canary in the mine, to alert us to issues of critical importance to us all. And in our rush to help the canary, we would be foolish to ignore the poison gas.